In June 2016 City Traffic Engineer Kathleen Krager (719-385-7628, kkrager@springsgov.com) tried to rush a lane reduction proposal through the City’s approval process before residents could review the proposal and voice their concerns and objections. Fortunately many of you took an active interest, showed up to the Planning Commission Meeting, and were instrumental in getting a 6-2 vote against Krager’s proposal.

Since then Krager has offerend no new and improved reasons to narrow our roads, instead rehashing the same worn out excuse about pedestrian safety she claimed in 2016. (Recall Krager claimed she must hurriedly narrow the roads as a matter of life and death. In the year and a half since that hyperbolic statement, how many people have died because Krager wasn’t able to push her proposal through?)

But of course the lack of data or sound reasoning won’t stop Krager from once again trying to force her vision onto everyone. On January 30, 2018, Principal Transportation Planner Tim Roberts sent an email out on Krager’s behalf informing us that she is going to take away lanes on Cascade Avenue, Weber Street, and Fontanero Street.

The email also promised to remove Colorado College’s four flashing light crosswalks and replace them with two standard crosswalks. Note Krager had admitted as far back as 2013 and again in 2016 that the flashing light crosswalks make pedestrians “feel too safe” and give them “a false sense of security,” such that they don’t look when crossing the road. Yet here we are, 2018, and the irksome crosswalks remain. (Remember that track record when Krager promises she will revert our roads to their original setup if her lane reduction plan proves counterproductive.)

Removing these poorly designed crosswalks will make pedestrians safer, but now Krager acts as if the opposite is true. She implies pedestrians are going to be less safe and uses that false implication to justify lane reduction. In her January 30th email she states, “given changes to crosswalks at Colorado College, reducing Cascade Avenue to one travel lane will improve pedestrian safety.”

This is an amazing assertion. As our analysis quite clearly showed last time Krager picked this fight, reducing Cascade to one lane may have prevented literally one single pedestrian-vehicle collision over the course of 12 years. That is one collision out of at least 1.6 million pedestrian crossings at Cascade avenue. There is just no evidence of a pressing safety concern to justify taking our lanes.

When we fought Krager on this issue two years ago, hundreds of you signed our petition establishing that ONEN residents do not want road narrowing. If you are still against Krager taking our traffic lanes, we ask you to say so by signing our new petition. (It’s important to sign the new petition so city officials can’t try to ignore us by claiming it’s unclear whether residents against some road narrowing are against other, extremely similar road narrowing.) Additionally, if you have the time, please send a letter to Mayor Suther’s office.

Tonight we learned that City Council will not be including City Transportation Manager Kathleen Krager’s lane reduction proposal on their July meeting agenda. In other words, we don’t need to persuade the Council to reject the proposal, because they aren’t even considering it in the first place! This is great news for the many residents against lane reduction in ONEN.

Before we found out the proposal is off the table, we prepared a note to give City Council outlining the reasons we’re against lane reduction as well as the many problematic statements Krager made during the June 16 Planning Commission meeting. If you’re interested, you can download a PDF of the full note here: ONEN Residents Oppose Lane Reduction. Below is the bullet point summary:

In early June 2016, City Transportation Manager Kathleen Krager announced a plan to narrow Cascade Avenue within Colorado College (CC). On June 16 the City’s Planning Commission rejected the proposal 6-2. We are asking City Council to do the same.

Krager answers questions during the June 16 Planning Commission meeting.

On June 8, 2016, City Transportation Manager Kathleen Krager announced her proposal to eliminate traffic lanes on Cascade Avenue through Colorado College (CC). On June 16, 2016, Krager presented her proposal to the City Planning Commission. (The Commission ultimately rejected the proposal 6-2.)

Many ONEN residents do not want Cascade narrowed, but Krager is presenting this as an urgent safety issue. The Gazette has quoted her saying “We’re having an increasing number of pedestrian accidents, and it’s just a matter of time.” During the Planning Commission meeting, she said she has seen too many citizens stand before commissions and ask “How many more must die?” Despite all data, Krager implies the safety issue on Cascade is life-or-death.

For nearly a decade, COS residents have been suggesting CC add a pedestrian underpass. An underpass would completely decouple pedestrian and vehicular traffic, thus fully protecting pedestrians from vehicle collisions. If this is truly a life-or-death crisis, we’d expect Krager and CC to jump at the opportunity to solve it.

Yet during the Planning Commission meeting, Krager dimissed the idea of an underpass. She specifically said it was not a financial problem–that if the underpass were a solution, they “would find the money.” Instead, Krager said CC is a jewel of the downtown area, and that an underpass would change the “feel” and “look” of the campus. She said it would change the way the campus functions. But isn’t that the point? If the way the campus functions currently risks student lives, it doesn’t seem like changing that would be such a problem.

Krager and CC can’t have it both ways. Either:

Pedestrian safety has become such a desperate problem that it justifies Krager rushing to get her proposal approved without commissioning any studies, offering any data, or even allowing proper public feedback, or

Pedestrian safety is such a minor issue that the “look” and “feel” of the campus are bigger priorities.

Colorado College (CC) did an analysis showing at least 900 pedestrians cross Cascade Avenue during the lunch rush. To be conservative we didn’t account for pedestrian crossings at other times of day.

We assumed a (low) estimate of 150 school days per year. To be conservative we didn’t account for pedestrian crossing on non-school days.

900 pedestrian crossings per day x 150 school days per year = 135,000 pedestrian crossings per year.

The CC analysis was for the years 2000 – 2012. 135,000 crossings per year x 12 years = 1,620,000 crossings.

According to CC’s Accident Summary, there were 15 pedestrian-vehicle collisions on Cascade in that time frame.

That’s how we got 15 pedestrian-vehicle collisions out of 1.6M pedestrian crossings.

However, one resident helpfully pointed out that the CC analysis gives more precise data about pedestrian crossings. Specifically, Figure 2-6 shows pedestrian volumes during the peak times in the morning, midday, and evening.

According to Figure 2-6 (above), Cascade Avenue actually sees 2,150 pedestrian crossings per day. Using the same method as above, this would bring us to 15 pedestrian-vehicle collisions out of 3,870,000 pedestrian crossings.In other words, 0.0004% of pedestrian crossings on Cascade resulted in a collision. Also note most of these collisions involved minor injuries or no injuries at all.

Despite the relative rarity of collisions on Cascade, Krager claims she must narrow Cascade before CC students return in August because “We’re having an increasing number of pedestrian accidents, and it’s just a matter of time.”

But we don’t know why she thinks so. As we just explained, the CC analysis cites 15 pedestrian-vehicle collisions on Cascade over a 12 year period. That’s 1.25 collisions per year. In the 3.5 years since then, according to data from CSPD (see the file called “Fuller letter”), Cascade has seen 3 pedestrian-vehicle collisions on Cascade. That’s 0.86 collisions per year. We don’t know what data Krager is looking at (if any) to suggest pedestrian accidents are increasing, but the data we’ve been able to find suggests collisions are actually the opposite.

From 2000-2012, 0.0004% of pedestrain crossings on Cascade resulted in a pedestrian-vehicle collision. That’s 1.25 collisions per year. Since then it’s gone down to 0.86 collisions per year.

This year the ONEN Board of Directors proposed eliminating traffic lanes on major roads through ONEN. Many ONEN residents don’t agree with this proposal, and volunteers have gone door to door throughout ONEN collecting signatures from fellow residents against lane reduction. Additionally, SaferCC.com has hosted (and is still hosting) an online petition against lane reduction.

Thanks to your help, we’ve collected hundreds of signatures. We’re still examining our list to make sure we don’t have duplicates, but the paper and online petitions combined have garnered at least 650 signatures from residents who don’t want lane reduction in ONEN.

These petitions were originally in reaction to the ONEN Board’s proposal, which has been in the works for months. Then, quite suddenly, barely a week before the Planning Commission meeting, City Transportation Manager Kathleen Krager announced a new proposal focused on narrowing only Cascade. This took both ONEN Board members and the general public by surprise, and with only a week until the Planning Commission meeting there was little time to review the new proposal and form responses.

During the meeting, one resident against lane reduction provided the Commission with the hundreds of signatures volunteers have worked so hard to collect this year. He referenced the number of signatures as he explained why he opposes lane reduction.

Commissioner Robert Shonkwiler clarified that the signatures were in opposition to a different proposal, and not the Cascade-only proposal before the Commission at the moment. The resident explained that the signatures were from people against lane reduction in ONEN, and Shonkwiler clarified twice more that the signatures were not against the specific proposal before the Commission today but were actually related to a different matter.

The implication is that we can’t truly know if everyone against neighborhood-wide road narrowing would be against narrowing Cascade alone. This implication is disingenuous. If we can’t know how residents feel, it’s not the fault of volunteers for being inaccurate with their petition wording; the responsibility lies with Krager–for allowing no time for the public process to take place–and with the City for letting her push a proposal that hasn’t been vetted. It is absurd that Shonkwiler would dismiss the efforts and work of citizen volunteers while accepting how hurriedly and inappropriately Krager put forth this proposal.

City Council president pro tem Jill Gaebler recognizes the problem. As quoted in the Gazette:

‘The fact is, we have been holding community meetings for the last few months to get public input for the previous plan to narrow all four roads,’ Gaebler said Thursday after Krager briefed the Parks Advisory Board. ‘We’ve had significant input and public process over that plan, and this plan came out in a press release a day ago, is coming to the Planning Commission June 16 and then to the council. I want the voice of the people in my vote decision. It seems very rushed.’

If the City has any genuine interest in how the public feels about narrowing Cascade only, perhaps its employees should follow a process that allows public feedback. And if they will not, perhaps its Commissioners should recognize where the fault lies.

[Note: a previous version of this post said Commission Chair Eric Phillips had been questioning the petition signatures. Now that the Planning Commission has released the video of their meeting we reviewed and realized Phillips only let the resident know that Commissioner Shonkwiler had a question.]

Thank you so much to everyone that attended the meeting and voiced opposition. We had a great turnout, and a lot of different people shared their experiences and expertise to explain why lane reduction does not make sense on Cascade or elsewhere in ONEN. However this is not the end. Stay tuned here for more information leading up to the City Council meeting in July.

Today’s meeting was recorded and we believe the video will be made available at this link soon.

If you’re able, head over to City Hall for the Planning Commission meeting happening now, June 16, 2016. The last item on the agenda addresses Kathleen Krager’s proposal to eliminate traffic lanes on Cascade Avenue. If you can’t make it, though, you can watch the meeting live via this link.

As of today nearly 300 local residents have signed our petition saying we’re against lane reduction in our neighborhoods. In the wake of this increasing backlash, City Transportation Manager Kathleen Krager is still trying to eliminate traffic lanes on Cascade through Colorado College. Click here to learn more, and come represent us tomorrow at the City Planning Commission meeting. That’s June 16, 2016, 8:30AM at City Hall.

The line of morning commuters stretches far down Cody Road in the Sherman Oaks neighborhood of Los Angeles. Neighbors say the traffic has dramatically increased since the app Waze has routed drivers onto formerly quiet backstreets.